Obama up 16 in Washington state

9/11/12 5:18 PM EDT

A new SurveyUSA poll reports Barack Obama has a 16-point lead in Washington state, 54 percent to 38 percent, confirming that Washington remains firmly rooted among the solidly blue states this year.

While the big spread isn’t much of a surprise, the regional breakdown is curious. The usual political divide between Eastern and Western Washington is obvious from the data but if the automated poll is correct, Romney has surprisingly lackluster support east of the Cascades, where he is merely tied at 44 with Obama.

John McCain, by contrast, swept Eastern Washington in 2008, winning all but one county.

The Washington state numbers could provide some insight into where things stand in neighboring Oregon, another blue state where there’s been very little public polling this year. The two Pacific Northwest states voted nearly exactly alike in 2008 — both were 57 percent to 40 percent Obama states — and they’ve been within a few points of each other in every election since 1992.